DELL CUTS RECYCLING PROGRAM COSTS
A Dell Earth Day promotion has lowered the cost of its recycling services.
For a limited time, Dell will refurbish or recycle an unlimited number of old computer systems from its business customers without an upfront cost provided the technology meets certain specifications. Dell says its Asset Recovery Services will remove customers’ old hardware and refurbish or recycle the computers based on strict environmental guidelines.
Dell also has reduced the price of computer recycling for consumers from $15 to $10. Additionally, Dell continues to offer free recycling to consumers who purchase new desktop or notebook computers or printers.
Dell’s global donation partner the National Cristina Foundation continues to offer U.S. consumers a free donation program for used computers.
"We want to meet our customer needs at all stages of the product lifecycle," Ken Hashman, vice president of Dell Deployment Services, says. "Dell’s operational excellence helps enable us to provide this great service very efficiently. Our goal is to help customers recover value from technology, and ensure that unusable hardware is responsibly recycled," he says.
"We took advantage of Dell’s recycling offer and had a positive experience," Autotrader.com CIO Dan Crowe says. "Dell took care of both the complex reporting we needed and managed the recycling process in an environmentally responsible way, which is of great value to our company."
In related news, the Dell Asset Recovery Service has received ISO 14001 certification from the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI). The Irish certification demonstrates that Dell has continual process improvement programs around its product recovery operations in place and that these practices are investigated by external audits, according to a Dell news release.
U.K. DELAYS WEEE IMPLEMENTATION
According to a letter from Chris Tollady of the U.K.’s Department of Trade and Industry, one of the agencies responsible for Britain’s implementation of the European Union’s Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) Directive, the country has delayed compliance from this August to July 2006.
The letter reads that the British government, similar to other EU member countries, has experienced "major practical difficulties" complying with the Aug. 13 deadline established by the WEEE Directive. Tollady writes that the British government "has received many representations from business and others saying more time should be taken on the practical implementation in order to get it right."
The British government, however, plans to go ahead with the Aug. 13 deadline for regulations regarding the marking of equipment to indicate when it is marketed.
Additionally, Tollady says the government will make regulations regarding the RoHS Directive once it has formal notification of the maximum concentration values for the substances covered by the directive.
INTERCON SOLUTIONS ADDS PLANT
Intercon Solutions, an ISO14001-certified electronics recycler, has expanded, relocating its headquarters to Chicago Heights.
Company CEO Brian Brundage says Intercon will continue to process electronics at its 125,000-square-foot Chicago plant until the new facility has an ISO14001-compliant environmental management system in place.
Eventually, all demanufacturing will be handled in the company’s new 300,000-square-foot Chicago Heights plant.
Brundage says that Intercon does not resell any components. "We feel that it truly makes us unique and adds a large amount of extra security to our process for clients that are more concerned with environmental liability and making sure that all of their equipment is actually accounted for," he says.
"With our industry growing as fast as it is, this new facility was a must to handle electronics that need to be properly recycled," Intercon Corporate Recycling Coordinator Timothy Osgood says.
In addition to its Chicago locations, Intercon operates aggregation warehouses in St. Louis; Concorde, N.C.; Dallas; Vancouver; Toronto; and Thunder Bay, Ontario.
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